


Just Something You Do

by andifiquitnow



Category: Sanctuary (TV) RPF
Genre: F/M, hotwrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andifiquitnow/pseuds/andifiquitnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amanda and Robin in a hallway at the end of a long day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Something You Do

**Author's Note:**

> One ticket to the special hell, please.

As an actor, kissing other people is part of the job description. It becomes not out of the ordinary to be kissing, and sometimes doing more, with people who are not your husband, wife, girlfriend. It ceases to be an event of note and becomes just something you do. Yeah, it can be a little weird sometimes, but it doesn’t have any importance, really.

You have to be comfortable with people to be able to act with them. There’s a level of trust and intimacy in acting. When you’re a naturally warm and open person, this intimacy extends beyond the set because it becomes a part of you. You don’t just trust people when you’re acting in front of them, you trust them all the time. You forget that just because it’s okay to snuggle with someone during a scene it may not be okay to snuggle with them after the director has called cut. But why wouldn’t you still be comfortable around them? The characters are gone but the trust and intimacy remains.

Amanda kisses people on the cheek all the time, which is a gesture mostly okay to everyone anyway, even people outside the acting world. Damian, Ryan, Robin. Her boys. She kisses people on the mouth sometimes too. Not often, but occasionally. Once, after they'd wrapped a season, she'd walked over and given Robin a quick kiss in front of the crew and the cast and everyone and he didn't act surprised. It wasn't weird. It was just an expression of affection. She forgets that this might have once been taboo or still is taboo with some people. Married people. Forgets until it’s over at least and then does an internal double-take. _What the hell._ But it’s still not a thing. Because she’s open and warm and everyone knows it doesn’t mean anything.

So when she drops him off at his hotel room one night after a long day of convention sessions, autographs, and interviews and leans in (down, really, in her heels) to kiss him goodnight, it doesn’t start out being something weird. It starts out as a kiss goodnight. But then she pauses there a second too long and in that extra second he opens his jaw slightly and all of a sudden this is not what it was before. Because randomly kissing people only means nothing if everyone involved knows it means nothing. Like words, kisses have only the power we give them. And either her or Robin, she’s not sure who, has suddenly given this kiss power.

She leans further into his mouth, which is their only connection other than her hand on his shoulder. They open their mouths at about the same time and for the first time in all their kisses their tongues touch. She thinks it was her who started that. She moves her tongue gently in Robin’s mouth and only eight seconds have gone by since she first leaned down. It’s a new sensation, Robin’s kiss like this. It’s not until he puts his hands on her ribcage and she moves in towards him that she really realizes what’s happening. That maybe this isn’t okay. They have full body contact for another two seconds and he feels and smells so familiar and then she pulls away suddenly with a flat hand on his chest. And then they don’t even have that contact because she’s taken a big step backwards. Her hand remains out in front of her in the universal sign for stop.

“Stop,” she says. She’s not sure which one of them she’s talking to.

“Shit,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--”

“No, it’s okay,” she interrupts him. “You don’t need to apologize.” She doesn’t drop her hand. “No one needs to apologize.” She’s pretty sure this is her doing, though. Maybe she should be apologizing.

Robin isn’t naive enough to think that just because he doesn’t have to say he’s sorry that somehow it’s okay. He thinks she means that it wasn’t okay but that neither of them gets to take the blame. He thinks about trying to make her laugh to get them out of this but he senses something serious is happening so he doesn’t.

“Amanda,” he starts.

“Robin,” she interrupts again.

At least her hand is down now, making this whole thing seem less confrontational. He’s not entirely sure what’s happening. Less than a minute has gone by.

Amanda tries to figure out what she wants to say. It’s hard to express your feelings succinctly under most circumstances and it’s that much more challenging when you’re flustered. She likes Robin and she knows he likes her and they flirt like crazy and sometimes she’s not sure what kind of “like” it is but there’s just never been any question. At the end of the day, every day, it’s her husband. It’s always been her husband. She knows Robin knows this. One of the undercurrents to their relationship, one of the few things she doesn’t tease him about, is the fact that Robin is still single. He’s a funny, good-looking guy who acts on television. Beyond that, he’s a good person. He could have his pick of women but never seems to be interested in anyone. She’s not self-centered enough to think that it’s because of her, but a tiny corner of her mind she usually ignores sometimes does ask softly if it’s because of her. And she really, really doesn’t want that to be true. She wants everyone to be happy. Unrequited feelings are not happy.

So what was happening right now then? Probably a natural reaction to their banter and their mutual affection and their familiarity with each other’s personal space. The surge in her abdomen was just a response to who he was and the connection they undeniably shared. That was all.

She lets out a breath and gives him kind of a smile. “I guess that was a bit too far,” she says.

“Yeah,” he responds. He realizes they’ve just found the edge of their flirting. How far their intimacy can go. The limits of the one-liners for the crowd and the fake arguments and the moments sitting just a bit too close talking about work. They stare at each other and he can see she knows they’ve found it too and that they don’t need to explain any further. Their synchronicity at work.

“Well, goodnight,” she says, making motions like she’s leaving.

“Goodnight, Mandy,” he says with a grin, knowing how it bugs her when people call her that. Maybe now it’s time for a joke.

She rolls her eyes. Good, he was right.

“See you tomorrow, Robin. We have that breakfast thing at 9:00, right?”

“Ugh, yes,” he answers. “Too. Fucking. Early.” Robin does not do mornings willingly and does not think he should have to spend his vacation days, conventions count, getting up to do promo at that hour. He does it because he knows it’s good for the show and it’s good for his career. And besides which, he likes it when Amanda teases him about not being a morning person. He likes to watch her tease him over coffee.

Amanda laughs and gives him a one-armed hug around the shoulders. “Buck up, lad” she says in her best cockney accent. “You’ll do splendidly.”

He fishes his key card out of his back pocket as she lets go and says in the same accent, “So you’ll keep signing my paycheque, then?”

“Was there ever any doubt! Cheeky.” She drops back into Amanda at the end of the sentence.

Robin sticks the key card into the slot and opens the door. “’Night,” he says again.

“’Night, Robin,” she answers and watches him close the door. She turns around twice to figure out which way she should be walking and heads toward her room. She has to pause though, after rounding the corner, to put one hand on her heart and the other on the wall and stand this way for a moment before she can continue.


End file.
